


Images of Sorrow, Pictures of Delight

by aintgonnaleaveyoumikey



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Awful marriage, Depression, Gen, Inspired by Music, Medication, Music, Pre-Game Events, canon-typical use of alcohol, no romantic relationships, well maybe if you squint really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23360338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintgonnaleaveyoumikey/pseuds/aintgonnaleaveyoumikey
Summary: When Doctor Friedlander first suggested antidepressants, Michael's immediate response was "I'm not fucking depressed". The doctor just smiled slightly and asked about his sexual problems.
Relationships: Amanda De Santa/Michael De Santa, Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	Images of Sorrow, Pictures of Delight

**Author's Note:**

> In my headcanon Michael's favorite singer is Phil Collins. You don't need to listen to the songs mentioned, but they would probably give some more flavor to the fic.

When Doctor Friedlander first suggested antidepressants, Michael's immediate response was "I'm not fucking _depressed_ ". The doctor just smiled slightly and asked about his sexual problems. 

That day he went home, sat by his pool with a glass of whiskey and his phone, and let Phil Collins sing his way to his soul just like he had for over two decades — except that he realized something was missing. _Can't Find_ _My_ _Way,_ then _Snowbound_ , then some more were playing and Phil was singing, the lyrics and the melodies that were forever etched into his memory were _there_ , but Michael didn't _feel_ it.

He felt absolutely nothing. He didn't even feel angry or sad about not feeling. He just didn't care anymore. 

Music, alongside movies, had always been his escape. The two things had kept him sane by distracting him from whatever awful shit was going on in his life at the time. Now he didn't even have that. He was an empty shell, hollow and useless.

Maybe he had left his soul in North Yankton. 

On their next session, when Doctor Friedlander asked if he had thought about the antidepressants, Michael could only utter, "I don't feel _Phil Collins_ anymore, Doc."

He picked up the pills before going home and took one before going to bed. He told Amanda he would stop drinking and start taking medication. 

" _Good, maybe you turn out to be a decent husband after all._ " 

The next three days went by in a shaky haze. He remembers breaking a glass and Amanda yelling at him. He remembers looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person looking back. He remembers… nothing else. 

He didn't eat much during the first five days. He remembers just having apple jam for dinner one evening; he didn't feel hunger but he ate something because he knew he had to. 

The haziness decreased slowly during the first week, but he was tired. Exhausted. Walking from the bed to the sofa took every ounce of strength he had. He was awake but he had these moments where he woke up to realize he had done nothing for hours. Amanda shot him dirty looks when she was home. 

And that was before he even wet the bed. 

He called Friedlander because he could deal with not recognizing himself but _not wetting the fucking bed.  
_“What if she had been there at the time, Doc? I want this to stop _now_.”  
"Two more weeks, Michael. If you don't feel better after that, we'll try something else. But the dose should be correct for a man your size. Now, how are you sexually?" 

He hadn't had a single thought all week and apparently couldn't get it up at all. _Fucking A._ Not that Amanda would ever want him again _after this_ , anyway.

When the second and third weeks brought no improvements, they changed to a different type of antidepressants, which wasn’t nearly as simple as it sounded. He didn’t know which was worse: being on the pills in the first place or having to wean them off. He had these jolts of electricity all over his body, his mind stayed slow.

With the second pills everything was still cloudy and he slept even more than on the previous ones. He hardly left the bed, yet alone the house. 

"I suppose it's an improvement. Can't feel sorry for yourself if you're never awake," Michael yawned. He was calling from bed, barely woken up at 4 pm.  
"Not what we are going for, Michael."  
"I know. You sure the dosage is right, Doc?"  
"We could try a smaller dose but I think the response would be better if…"  
"Yeah, okay, I'm trying another one," Michael mumbled and went back to sleep. 

The third one still fucked up his sleeping but not as badly. This one he had to take in the morning after waking up since it was supposed to make him more energetic. It only affected the first few hours of the day, but not even the accompanied nausea diminished the fact that it felt good to have a few hours of somewhat of a clear mind. 

The problem was that during the day he got progressively more tired. He was able to have dinner with his family a couple of times, and it was almost pleasant, but mostly he just napped for hours. He fell asleep on the dinner table once and woke up with a sore neck hours later. His family couldn't, or didn't want to, wake him up. 

The other problem was that after the naps he was filled with nervous energy, the kind that unwantedly reminded him of a certain ghost from his past. Usually he had to get out of the house and drive far, far away. Once he drove up to the Vinewood sign in the middle of the night, sat on the hood of his car and looked over Los Santos. The lights and the size of city used to amaze him; all the possibilities he thought he and his family would have here used to charm him, make him look forward to a future of security and calmness. 

He took out his earphones and nervously put on _In The Air Tonight_. God, he had been 16 when the song came out. Michael Townley, the trailer trash kid with a bright future ahead of him, had taken this song to his heart. 

Now it barely resonated in the emptiness of Michael De Santa. 

He looked at the full moon and thought of another song. He almost snickered at his own corniness but clicked play anyway. _Mad Man Moon_ filled his ears and at first he just listened. 

Soon he felt the need to _howl_ at the fucking moon. He had finally lost it. 

_If you could only see me now, old friend._

He howled and howled and howled like a wolf until his throat was sore, and when the song ended he got back in the car, drove away and never went back there. 

He wished he never had to talk about it either, but what was the use in going to therapy if he didn't talk about things?  
"That was certainly interesting, Michael. Now, this friend of yours…"  
"Trevor." Michael answered tiredly, rubbing his face. He just wanted to go home and have another way too long nap, but they really needed to figure out his next description.   
"You miss Trevor?" 

Michael paused to think. His thoughts were slow. As if he was sinking. 

"Being friends with Trevor was like… Like having a fucking lion for a pet. You find it and think it's just a… just a big fucking cat that protects you. You think it's _on your side_. It's useful and you grow attached to it. But then it gets hungry and you realize you could just as easily be food."  
The doctor raised his eyebrows, "So you took out your… pet, before it could turn on you?"  
Michael realized how fucked up the metaphor made their friendship sound like.   
"No, it wasn't like that. He wouldn't have betrayed me, he took pride in his loyalty. Real, actual pride as if our lives didn't revolve around doing bad things. He called us _brothers_. But he was reckless, and he —"   
"I'm afraid our time is up now, Michael."

He got his fourth bottle of pills but didn't believe for a second they would help. 

That was why it was such a surprise when the only side effects for the whole first week was an increased, or more like tripled appetite, some teariness and the whole _not being able to have an erection_ thing, but they were minor details. He could live with those for a while. He would get testosterone or erection pills later if he still needed them. 

He was in a goodish mood for a few days straight, which hadn't happened in years. He chatted with Jimmy about his games and gave Tracey a lift to see her friends, and she actually looked away from her phone for a while and _talked_ to him. They weren't exactly soul-stirring heart-to-hearts but they were _something_. He shed a few tears on the way home. 

He even found himself smiling tearfully at Amanda as she made them breakfast. She didn't exactly smile back but they didn't fight, either. Not that day, at least. He watched _Rum Runner_ , which he had seen dozens of times already, and cried when Beryl got shot. He hadn't done that ever since he first saw it as a kid. 

So he was feeling again. It felt alien after such a long time of emptiness, and the crying made him a bit uncomfortable, he had definitely never been a crier, but he could deal with that. It wasn't that bad. 

After three weeks passed by without any bedwetting or howling at the moon incidents, he gave music another go. He went to his usual place, the only thing missing was whiskey — _I don't miss it, I don't miss it, I don't miss it, soda will do just fine…_ — and basked in the sun, the warmth sinking into his soul. 

This time he had a different approach. He put on _I Can't Dance_ and then _Invisible Touch_. Lighthearted, great, familiar songs. And he enjoyed them, he hummed along, he smiled. There was hope. _This is it._

He hit play on _In The Air Tonight,_ and the drums did it immediately. He had music again.

A few tears appeared in the corner of his eye, mercifully hidden behind his sunglasses. He randomized the music and sat there listening until it was dark and he was cold and hungry. 

The next day he did it again. The tears were back before he even sat down on his lawn chair, but it was going to get worse, because when did anything good in his life last?

_Creeping up the blind side  
_ _Shinning up the wall  
_ _Stealing through the dark of night  
_ _Climbing through a window  
_ _Stepping to the floor  
_ _Checking to the left and the right_

Thinking back, Michael wouldn't have expected _that one_ to break him. Crying to songs like _For A Friend_ or _Can't Find My Way_ he understood, they were sad songs, but _Home By The Sea_ really never registered to him as especially sad. But now he listened to the lyrics differently. 

_Help me someone, let me out of here  
_ _Then out of the dark was suddenly heard  
_ _Welcome to the home by the sea_

He cried because it reminded him of himself, desperate for a way out of the game, before Dave found him and offered him just that. A new home. _Anywhere you want to go_. And he had chosen the sun and the beach as if they would heal everything. 

_Help us someone, let us out of here  
_ _Living here so long, undisturbed  
_ _Dreaming of the time we were free  
_ _So many years ago  
_ _Before the time when we first heard  
_ _Welcome to the home by the sea_

He cried because the _me_ changed to _us_ and now it wasn't just him who was desperately looking for a way out, it was Amanda, as well. He had made Amanda miserable. He cried because he remembered the way they had been when they were young and still in love.

He sobbed because he would do anything to go back to doing _something, anything_ , feeling important and powerful, and not this, not alone. Not what he had been living in Los Santos for the past seven years. 

_Images of sorrow, pictures of delight  
_ _Things that go to make up a life  
_ _Endless days of summer  
_ _Longer nights of gloom  
_ _Waiting for the morning light  
_ _Scenes of unimportance  
_ _Photos in a frame  
_ _Things that go to make up a life_

He had to sit up properly to avoid suffocating on his snot. He cried and when the song ended, he put it on again. Again. Again and again and again until Amanda came home to find him hours later, sitting in the same spot with his head in his hands and unable to stop the crying. At first she thought something had happened to Tracey or Jimmy. She was livid when he just pointed on his earphones and gasped “Genesis”. Eventually she left him to deal with it alone.

He couldn’t stop after that. The tears kept coming all evening.  
“Doc, I can’t stop, I can’t…”  
“It’s okay, Michael. It will pass.”  
“W-when? It’s fucking… it hurts,” Michael stammered, and it did, his sobs racked his whole body and he had these cramps. Muscles he didn’t know existed were now hurting like hell.  
“When you fall asleep, I’m sure. Try to calm down, put on a relaxation tape, have some tea.”  
Michael was sure any of those wouldn’t help.  
“Oh, and Michael? I have to inform that calling at this hour is _a bit_ more expensive.”

He didn’t fall asleep so he lay in bed, listened to the song all night. Even if it was the reason for all this, it gave him some comfort. Like he wasn’t alone. But he was. Amanda slept with earplugs on and didn’t acknowledge him at all. Michael didn’t exactly think he deserved any compassion from her, but he still would have liked some. The kids had their own things, Michael barely even saw them. He had no friends because he had got them killed or left them.

He didn’t get up all morning, and at noon Amanda came to their bedroom drunk and swaying.

"I did an Eyefind search, Michael, and the lyrics are about a literal haunted house. Youuu are being sooo ridiculous!" She slurred her words.  
"I know what the fucking lyrics mean, it’s my favorite fucking band," Michael sobbed. 

Amanda threw a water bottle on the bed. It almost hit Michael's face but he didn’t even flinch. She stalked into their bathroom, to the medicine cabinet. She had four bottles of pills in her hands when she came back.  
“I am throwing away all these fucking meds!"  
“You can’t, not the newest ones, I have to wean them off,” Michael spoke hoarsely and wiped his eyes. Amanda threw the bottles on the floor with a frustrated shriek and left. 

He texted Doctor Friedlander.  
_No more meds._  
  


He would wean these off like all the others. Three more weeks of suffering and then that was it. He would go back to normal. No more crying or pissing the bed. No more feelings. 

He pressed repeat again. He still had some time to wallow in his pain, his sadness, cry over everything and everyone he had lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some things to say:  
> \- Thank you, KingCroweOfCamelot, for beta reading and assisting me in torturing Michael!  
> \- Yes, this fic absolutely is a love letter to Phil Collins. My Trikey playlist is currently 40,35 % his music.  
> \- I think antidepressants can be a great thing for some people, however [they clearly were not working for Michael](https://youtu.be/OQUNTX7rJyw?t=1195). I'm worried this is giving too negative an image, so I just want to say I'm no medical professional and definitely not against medication.  
> \- Doctor Friedlander did it all on purpose to get material for his book and I hate him with burning passion.  
> 


End file.
